page_title: Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Saxe-Coburg and Gotha / History
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Karte Thüringen 1910.
context_page_description: Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, or Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, was an Ernestine, Thuringian duchy ruled by a branch of the House of Wettin, consisting of territories in the present-day states of Thuringia and Bavaria in Germany. It lasted from 1826 to 1918. In November 1918, Charles Edward, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, was forced to abdicate. In 1920, the northern part of the duchy was merged with six other Thuringian free states to form the state of Thuringia: Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Saxe-Altenburg and Saxe-Meiningen, Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt and Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, as well as the People's State of Reuss. The southern part of the duchy, as southernmost of the Thuringian states, was the only one which, after a referendum, became part of Bavaria.
  The name Saxe-Coburg-Gotha also refers to the family of the ruling House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, which played many varied roles in the dynastic and political history of Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries. In the early part of the 20th century, before the First World War, it was the family of the sovereigns of the United Kingdom, Belgium, Portugal, Bulgaria, and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
context_section_description: The Duchy was born when the arbitration of the King of Saxony, Frederick Augustus, produced the Treaty of Hildburghausen on 12 November 1826 for the Gothaische Teilung (Gothan Division), the extensive rearrangement of the Ernestine duchies. After the extinction of the Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg line, the Duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen exchanged his Duchy for that of Saxe-Altenburg. The Saxe-Meiningen line became Saxe-Hildburghausen and got from Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld the Saalfelder territories as well as the District of Themar and the places of Mupperg, Mogger, Liebau and Oerlsdorf. The Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld received for that the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg, Districts of Königsberg and Sonnefeld from Saxe-Hildburghausen, and the properties of Callenberg and Gauerstadt from Saxe-Meiningen.
  By then, the Principality of Lichtenberg, on the Nahe River, had already been a part of the Duchy of Coburg for ten years.  Ernest III, the sovereign of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, had received it in 1816 from the Congress of Vienna for providing assistance to the Allies in their war against France.  But, because of the great distance from Coburg and of the unrest caused by the Hambach Festival, the Duke sold the Principality in 1834 to Prussia.
  The newly created Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was initially a double duchy, ruled by Ernest III as Duke Ernest I in a personal union, but with only one vote in the Bundesrat.  The opportunity to unify the two duchies in 1826 was missed.  After the Staatsgrundgesetz (House laws) of 1852, the duchies were bound in a political and real union.  They were then a quasi-federal unitary state. Later attempts to merge the duchies failed in 1867 because the Landtag of Gotha did not want to assume the higher state debts of Coburg and in 1872 because of the questions about the administration of the whole union.
  The Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha received on 3 May 1852 a national constitution, which had taken substantial parts of the fundamental rights from the Constitution of the National Assembly in Frankfurt. It also joined the German Zollverein in 1834, the North German Confederation in 1866 and the German Empire in 1871. At the Bundesrat in Berlin, where it had a seat, it kept its agents but, since 1913, like most of the other Thuringian states, it had to defer to the Grand Duchy of Saxe-Meiningen for the representation.
  Ernest I died in 1844. His elder son and successor, Ernest II, ruled until his own death in 1893. Because he had died childless, the throne of the two duchies would have passed to his late brother Prince Albert's male descendants. But Prince Albert was the husband of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and his eldest son, Edward, the Prince of Wales, was already her heir apparent. Besides, he was prohibited by the Constitutions of both duchies from inheriting the throne if there were other eligible male heirs. But he had already renounced his claim in favour of his next brother, Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh. So Alfred became the next Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
  Alfred's only son, also named Alfred, died in 1899, so when Duke Alfred died in 1900 he was succeeded by his nephew the Duke of Albany, the 16-year-old son of Queen Victoria's youngest son, Leopold, as Duke Alfred's next brother Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and his son Prince Arthur of Connaught had renounced their own claims to the succession. Reigning as Duke Carl Eduard, Charles Edward, because of his age, began under the Regency of Prince Ernst von Hohenlohe-Langenburg until he came of age in 1905. The new Duke also continued to use his British title, the Duke of Albany. But, because he chose to side with the Germans against the British in the First World War, he was stripped of his British titles in 1919.
  After the November Revolution ended the monarchy in 1918, the two duchies became two different and independent states, the Free State of Coburg and the Republic (later Free State) of Gotha. But their leaders believed that their new countries were not economically feasible so they began to search for possible mergers. Eventua
caption: The Thuringian states and their capitals until 1918
  Free states 1918-1920; united as Thuringia since 1920
   Ernestine duchies
   (Ernestines → House of Wettin)   Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (Gotha, Coburg)   Grand Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (Weimar)   Duchy of Saxe-Altenburg (Altenburg)   Duchy of Saxe-Meiningen (Meiningen) Reussian principalities
   (House of Reuss → Vögte (advocates) of Weida, Gera and Plauen)   Principality of Reuss-Gera (Gera)   Principality of Reuss-Greiz (Greiz) United as People's State of Reuss (Gera) 1919-1920
   Schwarzburgian principalities
   (House of Schwarzburg)   Principality of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt (Rudolstadt)   Principality of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen (Sondershausen) Surrounding states and their capitals   Kingdom of Prussia (Berlin), Province of Saxony (Magdeburg), Region of Erfurt (Erfurt)   Kingdom of Prussia, Province of Hesse-Nassau (Kassel), Region of Kassel (Kassel)   Kingdom of Prussia, Province of Saxony, Region of Merseburg (Merseburg)   Kingdom of Bavaria (Munich)   Kingdom of Saxony (Dresden) Not in the German Empire   Austria-Hungary (Vienna), Cisleithania (Vienna), Kingdom of Bohemia (Prague)
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